Interval models for uncertainty analysis and degradation prediction of the mechanical properties of rubber

Abstract

As rubber is a hyperelastic material, its nonlinear deformation behavior during aging is significantly influenced by various factors, including the material characteristics, demonstrating a significant uncertainty. Most of the existing uncertain prediction methods of rubber nonlinear property degradation are based on the probability density function, which requires a large number of samples to obtain the probability distribution and requires a lot of work. Therefore, the interval model is used in this study to characterize the uncertainty. However, the traditional interval constitutive models ignore the correlation between interval variables, and the prediction results have large errors. In order to minimize prediction errors and improve prediction accuracy, an interval Mooney–Rivlin (M–R) correlation model that considers the correlation between parameters was established. To address the influence of uncertainties, an interval Arrhenius model was constructed. The M–R model requires multiple fittings of stress–strain curves to obtain the model parameters, and the prediction process is relatively complex. Therefore, combing the two proposed models, the relationship equations of rubber tensile stress with aging temperature and aging time were first established by interval Arrhenius, and then the interval M–R model was used to obtain the variation ranges of parameters C 10 {C}_{10} and C 01 {C}_{01} . By contrasting this with the measured rubber aging information, the effectiveness of the proposed model was confirmed. Compared with the prediction model based on the average value, the maximum error of prediction of this model is reduced by about 60%. Compared with the traditional interval model, the prediction region is significantly reduced, which further improves the prediction accuracy. The above results indicate that this interval aging lifetime prediction model is suitable for characterizing the nonlinear stress–strain behavior of rubber-like elastomers.